Students set up pro-Palestinian camps at British campuses after US clashes
Pro-Palestinian students have gathered in protest at universities across the UK following violent demonstrations at campuses in the US.
Students in Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, Sheffield and Bristol set up tents outside university buildings on Wednesday in protest against the war in Gaza.
A camp at Warwick University has been set up in the townâs piazza for a week.
More camps are due to be set up at universities including Lancaster, Swansea and Edinburgh, according to the Times.
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, a UK-based organisation âdedicated to securing Palestinian human rightsâ, wrote on X: âToday, students from Leeds, Newcastle, Bristol and Sheffield have joined Warwick â demanding that our universities stop investing in Israelâs genocide!â
Images shared by the group showed large groups of students gathering on campuses, alongside tents and banners on prominent areas of the universities.
Bristol students said they staged the action âin protest of the universityâs complicity in Israelâs genocide of Palestiniansâ, while Apartheid Off Campus Newcastle said its demonstration was to âhighlight the institutionâs investment strategy and its complicity in the Israeli militaryâs war crimes in Gaza and the West Bankâ.
Student activists elsewhere held marches and one-off protests.
The groups, in a similar vein to the US movement, have called on their universities to divest from Israel in response to its military operation in the Gaza Strip.
This would mean selling off stock in Israeli companies or otherwise dropping financial ties.
The students have also asked for supporters to donate food, drinks and hygiene products.
The protests come as violent clashes were seen at campuses across the US.
Around 300 people were arrested at Columbia University in New York after police stormed it on Tuesday night.
Violence also broke out at the University of California (UCLA), where âa group of instigatorsâ came on campus to âforcefully attackâ the pro-Palestinian encampment.
Activists have also clashed with police officers who destroyed their tents at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
Protest encampments have also been cleared by the police, resulting in arrests, or closed up voluntarily at campuses across the US, including Fordham University in New York, Portland State in Oregon, Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona and Tulane University in New Orleans.